Blogs

In keeping with the spirit of our blog, we’ll take a look at something obvious from the NCEI monthly climate analysis, then dig a little harder into some even more pertinent climatological truths.  1. March was warm - a lot warmer than you might think. Our monthly State of the Climate report found that March 2017 was the second-warmest March on record for the globe. Just about any way you slice it, it was second only to 2016 in the history of global-scale temperatures for March. But, as we’ve pointed out in this space before, sometimes it’s human nature - or perhaps American nature - to interpret “second warmest” as “not all that warm.” But it’s worth a closer look, in two dime…   Read article

The tropical Pacific Ocean has been giving mixed signals recently, making a forecaster’s job even more difficult! In short, many of the computer models we use are predicting the development of El Niño over the next several months, but current conditions in the tropical Pacific aren’t showing many of the elements we’d expect ahead of a developing El Niño. We’ve had neutral ENSO conditions since January, and forecasters predict that continued neutral is the most likely scenario through at least June. By September, chances of El Niño rise to about 50%, a slight edge over neutral (~40% chance) or La Niña (~10% chance). What are forecasters seeing now? We rely on prediction models becaus…   Read article

When it comes to the Winter Outlook, there are two equally important blog posts here at the ENSO Blog. The first, obviously, is the actual post on the winter outlook describing what exactly we, at the Climate Prediction Center, were thinking when it came to temperature and precipitation for winter. But we shouldn’t overlook the second post. The one where we look back upon that forecast and say “So… how’d we do?” So…now that winter’s officially over, how’d we do? “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future” When Yogi’s right, he’s right.  The Winter Outlook, issued in November for December-January-February, looked a lot like what you expect during a La Niña …   Read article

Recently, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) identified February 2017 as the second-warmest February on record for the contiguous United States (CONUS). According to NCEI’s report, the CONUS average temperature for the month of February was 41.2°F. Compared to the twentieth-century average (1901-2000), the CONUS was 7.3°F warmer than average, indicating February 2017 was an abnormally warm month. The same can be said for January 2017, with a CONUS average temperature of 33.6°F, which is 3.5°F above average. The warmer than average temperatures so far this year have already led to an early blooming period in the southern and eastern parts of the United States. …   Read article

With La Niña in the rear-view mirror, forecasters expect that neutral conditions will continue through the spring. After that, there are increasing chances of El Niño making an appearance, but they’re still not very strong chances—around 50% by the late summer, but not quite at the point to warrant an El Niño Watch. What’s behind this verdict? Pre-trial briefing First, a quick review of the recent facts. Sea surface temperatures in the Niño3.4 region (our main region for monitoring and predicting ENSO) were close to average during February, measuring -0.15°C below average in the ERSSTv4 dataset, and +0.14°C above average in the OISST dataset. These two datasets have different input and…   Read article